The Lightning hope to close out the year and this homestand with a win tonight over the Hurricanes. They've won two games in a row so far and embarque on a three game Canadian city road trip next week.

This is the last time I'll have to call the arena the St. Pete Times Forum, as of tomorrow we're switching over to the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

Tonight's pre-game festivities will start at 4:30 when the team will unveil a life-sized bronze statue of Phil Esposito in the West Plaza. Honouring this co-founder of the team, will start the 20th anniversary year for the team.

The team will be again without Hedman which will be tough for the D again. Thompson is expected to make his return during the upcoming roadtrip, but with Hedman, the team is still saying nothing about him. This is not great news, the longer this goes on the more bleak his injury seems.

Garon gets another start in net, and with the games all evenly spaced out for the roadtrip, the job is his to lose now. Aside from the bomb in San Jose, he's been pretty solid in net.

What a post-game by Boucher. So earnest when he talks about the fans who came out to tonight's game and the game against Philly]]>thevancitycanuck@gmail.com (Dani Toth)DecemberFri, 30 Dec 2011 06:11:18 +0000Game 36: Lightning 4, Habs 3http://lightninghockeyblog.com/2011-articles/december/game-36-lightning-4-habs-3.html
http://lightninghockeyblog.com/2011-articles/december/game-36-lightning-4-habs-3.html

I'm not sure what I'm more surprised at:

That Montreal blew a 3-1 lead? Or the Lightning came back from being down 3-1 to win 4-3?

John at RC calls this game a yearly right of passage. The annual Christmas game against some Canadian team whose loud, boisterous fans invade the arena. Giddy up for some ole-ing.

Both teams are struggling. The habs have fired their coach and their assistant coach, but their GM still has a job. Considering he traded for Kaberle, you gotta say, how the hell does he still have a job?

“I was there at the TV timeout, on the left wing, and I was right in front of the bench. Their coach [Guy Boucher] looked up and started yapping at me,” Hartnell told the Daily News. “I was just sitting there, not doing anything. Then, two guys started slashing me from the bench. I just kind of pushed their sticks out of the way. I ended up getting 10 minutes for really nothing. I've never seen a coach start yelling at an opposing player from the bench for just standing there.”

Hartnell said he didn’t know what Boucher was saying because he could not understand him.”

Riiiight Hartnell. It was all Guy Boucher.

Via Erlendsson of the Tampa Tribune, here is what Malone said about the game:

"It was a weird game,'' Malone said. "I just think (Hartnell) was standing too close to our bench, I think ... it reminded me of (the movies) "Slap Shot'' or "Youngblood'' or something. I didn't know what was going on.''

These references finally make sense to me since I (finally) watched for the first time both Slap Shot and Youngblood this Christmas weekend. More updates later on the situation if anything comes out of it.

A: Gino, tough question. At the moment, defence and goaltending appear to be Tampa Bay's biggest issues, although I'm not willing to throw Dwayne Roloson under the bus. He's a fiercely competitive guy who may not be able to handle a full season at this stage of his dimming career, but I trust there is still enough in the tank to help stabilize his team. Defensively, the Lightning aren't good enough, but because of the big contracts this team has to contend with, fixing the holes in season is tough to do. Lecavalier's mammoth term and salary obviously haunts this organization, largely because he's closer to a third line player now than a game-breaker. And as well as Tampa Bay did last season, their success was based more on riding momentum then it was the pure readiness of this franchise to move to the next level. There are still a few growing pains the Lightning have to push through, but they are well coached, well managed and have a great stable of young players.

**

So how far off is Dreger? Or is he right on?]]>thevancitycanuck@gmail.com (Dani Toth)DecemberSat, 17 Dec 2011 20:53:03 +0000